My Charity System made me too OP
Chapter 363 - 363: Forgebinder II

The storm barrier collapsed, then reformed upside down. The platform split. Gravity flipped in chaotic pulses. The Vault Lord now hung upside down, and Leon floated weightlessly, tethered only by momentum and instinct.

Roman screamed from across the vault, "HE'S GOING ABSOLUTE—INVERTING ALL SPACE-TIME IN THE CORE ZONE!"

The Vault Lord charged—its final blow was a condensed gravity inversion sphere, capable of rewinding space in a 10-meter radius.

Leon let go.

He allowed himself to fall into the vortex. Not resisting.

Echofang shrank to gauntlet mode. Shell Reverb pulsed.

Then—the moment before the impact, Leon fired a pulse:

Karmic Loop + Absolute Return + Recoil Pulse.

The strike absorbed the inversion. Echoed it. Reversed it.

The Vault Lord's attack hit its own core, fed by Leon's counter-tempo.

BOOM.

The explosion shattered the sky platform in a ring of golden-blue stormlight. The entire vault rippled with dissonant pulses—until it finally stilled.

[Vault Lord Defeated – Core Stabilizing…]

[Sky Vault Reaches, Subsection 1 Cleared]

Leon floated downward, landing on what remained of the central platform. Echofang glowed softly on his forearm, gently retracting.

Roman landed nearby, panting. "We're gonna need… stronger gear soon."

Leon smiled. "That was stronger gear."

The shattered sky mended behind them. The Vault Core glowed dimly, no longer hostile, its rotation settling into a soft orbit. A thin energy bridge reconnected Leon and Roman to the rest of the team now waiting on the opposite anchor platform.

Liliana, hands on hips, smirked. "About time."

Milim cracked her knuckles. "So? You kill the sky god or whatever?"

Leon nodded. "Vault Lord's down. Its gravity zone is stabilized."

Roselia narrowed her eyes toward the far horizon. "Then that should've opened the path to Aetherion…"

A crystal embedded in Naval's gauntlet pulsed, and a map projection flickered into view.

[New Sector Unlocked – Aetherion Shardreach]

Location: 85 km eastward drift

Status: High instability. Temporal Winds. Phantom Echo activity reported.

Naval raised a brow. "That place was sealed for decades. Only accessible when a Vault Lord falls."

Roman folded his arms. "And full of memories of old Ascenders. Combat recordings. Maybe techniques."

Leon's eyes sharpened. "Then we go."

The journey wasn't simple.

The route to Aetherion wasn't just a bridge or a path. It was a stormstream highway, a band of high-pressure air currents and fragmented stone arcs that the team had to ride and leap across like stepping stones in a storm.

Each jump was life or death. Mist Wyrms, aerial leeches, and fractal storm anomalies—broken time distortions—attacked them midair.

At one point, Roman fired stabilizing anchors into a spinning satellite rock to redirect a wind current just so Leon could vault over a crumbling ledge.

After nearly an hour of traversal—

They saw it.

Floating above a broken circular platform surrounded by a storm halo was the citadel itself: a fragmented city in the sky. Tower ruins drifted in rhythmic circles. Suspended bridges twisted in slow spirals. Giant glowing crystals floated, frozen mid-shatter, each one pulsing with distant voices.

[Aetherion – Citadel of Lost Echoes]

Built by an extinct aerial race. Now haunted by combat phantoms, storm echoes, and gravity-forged AI sentinels.

Danger Level: High. Mana Compression Fields Active.

Reward Hints: Echo Techniques, Aero-Step Cores, High-Tier Motion Gear, and Grav-Sync Relics.

Milim blinked. "So… flying ghost robots and echo zombies?"

Roselia sighed. "More or less."

Leon stepped forward, the wind shifting as Echofang extended automatically.

"We take it slow. Sync watches. This place messes with time."

Roman added, "Don't trust what you hear in the fog. Half the voices will be your own."

Inside, the first trial activated: a courtyard filled with floating platforms and combat shadows—spectral remnants of legendary Ascenders, caught in time loops.

They were forced to fight against high-speed mimics of Tower elites—some who moved at double-tempo using old tech, others who used forgotten Shell derivatives or echo-altered gravity strikes.

Leon was matched against an Echo Phantom of Kael Yuron, a blade-monk from the 2nd Tower Era.

Kael struck with silken steps, each one leaving a sonic mirage. Leon met him blow-for-blow, using Tripart Echo + Recoil Delay to disrupt his flow.

When Leon finally landed a full Absolute Return into an open core hit, the echo shattered into blue dust—and whispered:

"You're ready for the Wind Echo. Seek the Crown Spiral…"

Leon stood silently, watching the fog part around the citadel's deeper tower.

The Crown Spiral—core of Aetherion.

Only opens to those who defeat five Echo Phantoms and realign the gravity shards surrounding the tower base.

Said to contain an Echo Heart—a relic that lets you store and replay perfected combat sequences from your past at will.

The team now knew their path.

Five trials.

A winding spiral.

One final echo that may turn the tide in Leon's evolution.

And beyond it—perhaps the first true glimpse into a secret kept since Floor 1000's fall…

The wind was eerily still here, unnaturally calm—as if the world was holding its breath. Above them, the Crown Spiral Tower hovered in midair, its structure circling into itself like a gravity-defying helix. Five glowing crystals floated around the base in orbit—each corresponding to an Echo Phantom's domain.

A hollow voice echoed across the sky:

"To ascend the Spiral, you must defeat yourselves—reflected in the will of others greater than you."

"One phantom for each path. None may assist another."

The team looked at each other in silence. Then, without a word, they stepped toward their respective domains.

Leon entered the crimson-lit chamber alone. His boots echoed on smooth obsidian stone. Waiting for him, seated on a throne of spiral blades, was a figure clad in voidmetal armor.

The being stood—a mirror of Leon, but bulkier, more grounded. Its Shell Reverb pulses were constant and loud—deafening even before they moved.

Name: Varnak the Titan Pulse

Class: Shell Pulse Vanguard (Tier VIII)

Specialty: Reverb Crush + Kinetic Loadout Loop

Weakness: Tempo Break + Adaptive Counter Flow

"Come," Varnak said, voice rumbling like a collapsing mountain. "Let me see if your rhythm can endure impact."

They clashed.

Leon moved like water, light on his feet. Varnak moved like gravity—every step a quake, every pulse a sledgehammer. Echofang sparked on the first clash, and Leon's counter was too slow—his Shellfire rhythm interrupted by the sheer force of Varnak's overcharged echoes.

But Leon learned fast.

On the second exchange, he didn't meet force with force. He let Varnak's strike miss by inches, then used Tripart Echo: Inversion Sync, sending his echo behind the titan and into a weak zone at the spine.

The titan staggered.

On the third exchange, Leon used Absolute Return—not for damage, but for disruption—bending the echo to shift Varnak's pulse rhythm out of phase.

Varnak faltered.

Leon slammed Echofang down with a Karmic Tripulse, unleashing a perfect echo harmony—and Varnak shattered, collapsing into radiant shards.

[Echo Phantom Defeated – Reverb Titan's Shellbone Obtained]

Leon breathed heavily. "One down."